Buildings in Germany – The beginnings from antiquity to Romanesque

Architecture is an art form that constantly and noticeably accompanies our everyday lives . People who live near truly impressive architectural works certainly gain a lasting quality of life when they are reminded daily of the treasures they have around them – unlike the tourists who come specifically to see these impressive buildings, they have them at their disposal every day!

In Germany, we can trace the architectural remains of the past from antiquity onwards:

Following in the Footsteps of the Roman Empire

At the beginning of our era, the then world power, the Roman Empire, had settled parts in the south and west of the land then inhabited by Germanic tribes, and it was they who left us the first architectural works (the Germanic tribes lived in wooden hut settlements and did not pass on any lasting buildings).

Some remnants of the Roman border fortifications, built between 100 and 150 AD, can still be admired today. The Limes bordered the present-day German states of Bavaria, Baden-Württemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Hesse. This complex system of barriers, consisting of palisades, ditches, and ramparts, can still be traced in the landscape. In 2005, it was UNESCO World Heritage .

No matter how it was constructed, a barrier doesn't appear particularly spectacular when viewed in person. Therefore, some of the approximately 900 watchtowers and the roughly 120 smaller and larger troop camps or forts have been reconstructed to varying degrees.

Claus te Vehne from 74189 Weinsberg has compiled an admirable list of which of the reconstructions are truly worth a visit on his website www.limesseiten.de . Here you can now find even more information about the Roman remains along the Limes in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Saarland.

Besides military installations, you'll also discover Roman villas and other finds such as building inscriptions, quarries, and gravestones. Many of these are accompanied by photographs, making even a simple stroll through this website an educational and entertaining journey into the past.

However, if you want to inspire children with this excursion into our origins of architecture, you should choose special days such as the Roman Days at the Roman fort and Roman Museum in Aalen (demonstrations, mock battles, fashion shows, Roman food) or one of the activity days at the completely reconstructed Saalburg fort near Bad Homburg, which include many exciting topics.

Recent archaeological findings demonstrate that the Limes (Roman frontier) still yields valuable scientific discoveries. In early 2024, researchers presented the results of an excavation campaign near Bad Ems, during which perfectly preserved wooden posts from Roman defensive ditches dating back to the 1st century were unearthed.

Markus Wittköpper (expert for wet wood conservation at the Leibniz Centre for Archaeology – LEIZA) describes the special features of the find:

We owe these unusually well-preserved archaeological finds primarily to the oxygen-poor, damp soil, which was covered by dense layers of sediment. In my 35 years of professional experience, I have never encountered such firmly adherent sediment deposits.”

The Romans also had a civilian life. For this civilian life, they built bridges, thermal baths, amphitheaters, and city gates, such as the Porta Nigra. This is probably the best-preserved city gate of antiquity and is located today on the edge of Trier's city center.

In the ancient Roman city, the ruins of various thermal baths can also be visited. There is a reconstructed basilica (Constantine's Basilica), the Roman bridge, and an amphitheater. The first walls of the cathedral also date back to Roman times, as do the beginnings of Cologne Cathedral. Roman structures can also be found in the original Roman cities of Augusta Vindelicorum (Augsburg) and Cambodunum (Kempten), as well as in several other locations in Bavaria, Hesse, and Baden-Württemberg.

In these formerly civilian areas, finds continue to be discovered that enrich our historical understanding. In December 2024, a silver amulet from the 3rd century, the oldest known evidence of Christianity north of the Alps, was presented to the public in Frankfurt am Main. Prof. Dr. Markus Scholz (archaeologist and expert in provincial Roman archaeology, Goethe University Frankfurt) deciphered the inscription and explained:

The author must have been a highly skilled writer. It is unusual that the inscription contains no reference to any faith other than Christianity

From the time of their greatest expansion, the Romans were gradually pushed back by various Germanic tribes. With them, urban culture and advances in architecture disappeared for a considerable period. It was only with Charlemagne that the Frankish Empire, , produced a ruler who possessed the resources to undertake significant building projects.

Frankish Empire and Pre-Romanesque

This brings us to the 8th century in architecture . In art history, this period is known as the Pre-Romanesque and primarily encompasses architectural works. It marks the transition from Late Antiquity to the Romanesque period and thus extends roughly from the 5th to the 11th century.

Charlemagne , or rather his master builder Odo of Metz, left us the Palatine Chapel in Aachen, which was probably built from the year 793 onwards in a work that took several years (it was consecrated in 798).

This chapel of the former imperial palace, which today forms the center of Aachen Cathedral, was designed as an octagon and thus probably modeled after the most famous buildings of that time.

A similar form can be found in San Vitale in Ravenna and the Church of Saints Sergius and Bacchus in Constantinople (the “Little Hagia Sophia”), important Byzantine church buildings from the 6th century. Late antique stately buildings such as St. Gereon and the Praetorium in Cologne also boasted octagonal domes.

These buildings represented the pinnacle of architectural skill of the time, to which even the Frankish architect Odo of Metz could add no new knowledge some 150 years later. The Emperor's Palatine Chapel remained the tallest and most expansive building north of the Alps for more than another 200 years.

Explanation of the illustration:

• Fig. 1: Spring house at Tusculum (Etr.)
• Fig. 2: Construction of the round arch (Etr.)
• Fig. 3: Thor to Volterra (Etr.)
• Fig. 4: Thor to Perugia (Etr.)
• Fig. 5: The Cloaca Maxima in Rome (Etr.). Circa 600 BC.
• Fig. 6: Etruscan temple. After G. Semper's reconstruction.
• Fig. 7: Ground plan of the Etruscan temple
• Fig. 8: Column from the cucumella to the vulci (Etr.)
• Fig. 9: So-called tomb of the Horatii and Curiatii (Etr.)
• Fig. 10: Etr. Tomb at Castell d'Asso
• Fig. 11: Grabcippus (Seitenans. Etr.)
• Fig. 12: Barrel vault (Roman)
• Fig. 13: Cross vault (Roman)
• Fig. 14: Ground plan of the Pantheon (Roman). 26 BC.
• Fig. 15: Elevation of the Pantheon
• Fig. 16: Cross-section of the Pantheon
• Fig. 17: Temple of Venus and Roma in Rome
• Fig. 18: Ground plan of the Temple of Venus and Roma

of these pre-Romanesque Carolingian buildings survive. Those that were not demolished to make way for new construction or had fallen into disrepair were further developed and often completely covered over by later architectural styles. The monastery on Reichenau Island and the monasteries of Fulda and Lorsch are among the surviving examples of Carolingian architecture, although only small parts of the original structures remain, such as the gatehouse or royal hall of Lorsch Abbey, or no immediately visible remains at all.

Romanesque – European artistry on the rise

The monastery church of St. Michael in Hildesheim was built between 1010 and 1030, thus initiating the first major European Art Movement : the Romanesque.

Romanesque architecture is the first art historical period after antiquity in which buildings in Europe once again achieved a level of artistry worthy of its own name. The distinctive style, recognizable by walls with massive stone blocks, columns with block-like capitals, round arches, and arched windows, developed simultaneously across Europe around the turn of the first millennium.

Many interesting buildings from this period have been preserved for us. During this era, numerous churches and monasteries were founded, and construction began on many castles. Evidence of Romanesque architecture can now be found throughout Germany: the Romanesque Road stretches across Saxony-Anhalt, Wartburg Castle towers above the Thuringian town of Eisenach, and Romanesque buildings include the Collegiate Church of St. Servatius in Quedlinburg, Brunswick Cathedral , and Lübeck Cathedral.

Architecture in the south was more vibrant than ever before, as we can see from Trier Cathedral, Worms Cathedral, Mainz Cathedral, and above all, Speyer Cathedral . This stone-built symbol of the Salian dynasty's power was the largest building in the Christian world in the 11th century .

Speyer Cathedral, dedicated to the Holy Roman Emperor and St. Mary, is the most important Romanesque building in Germany. With the almost complete destruction of Cluny Abbey during the French Revolution, the "Cathedral Church of St. Mary and St. Stephen" (its official name) became the largest surviving Romanesque church in the world.

The Rhenish Romanesque style also produced beautiful, often colorfully painted buildings, such as the Church of St. Peter in Bacharach or Limburg Cathedral.

Explanation of the illustration:

• Fig. 5. House of Pansa, length average from A to B (vestibulum, ostium, atrium, tablinum, peristyle, oecus)
• Fig. 6. House of Pansa, reconstructed perspective interior view from A to B of the floor plan
• Fig. 3. Claudius' Aqueduct in Rome, 52 AD.
• Fig. 8. Tomb of Hadrian in Rome (reconstruction) 135/136 AD (now Castel Sant'Angelo)
• Fig. 9. Ground plan of the mausoleum
• Fig. 10. Cross-section of Hadrian's Mausoleum (after Knapp) – exhaust duct, central chamber – burial chamber, air vents, ascending corridor, entrance with the statue of Hadrian
• Fig. 4. House of Pansa at Pompeii. Ground plan
• Fig. 7. Arch of Constantine in Rome. 4th century AD.
• Fig. 1. Amphitheater at Nîmes. Exterior elevation
• Fig. 2. Floor plan
• A to the height of the last step of the outermost enclosure
• B up to the height of the second enclosure
• C up to the height of the first enclosure
• D average across the ground area
• Fig. 11. Hall from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, 216 AD.
• Fig. 12. Peristyle of Diocletian's Palace at Spalato, 305 AD.
• Fig. 13. Arch lintel and column decoration at the Porta Aurea of ​​Diocletian's Palace

Many buildings were begun in the Romanesque style and only completed in the subsequent Gothic period , which emerged in Spain, Italy and north of the Alps at the beginning of the 13th century (in France, buildings from about 1130 onwards bear Gothic features).

Thus, Nuremberg Castle and Wartburg Castle were begun in the 11th century and later expanded in the Gothic style, the last construction phase of Bamberg Cathedral already falls into the Gothic era, and Maulbronn Monastery was built by the Cistercians from the 12th to the 15th century, it therefore contains many Gothic elements.

That these fluid transitions still occupy architectural research today is demonstrated, for example, by the Cistercian monastery of Maulbronn. , Prof. Dr. Matthias Untermann (Professor Emeritus of European Art History at the University of Heidelberg) detailed how different construction phases in Maulbronn seamlessly blended together and how Gothic elements were integrated into the originally Romanesque structure.

Today, historical buildings are mostly cared for by dedicated professionals who go to great lengths to make the cultural heritage understandable to the public.

If you are interested in the buildings around you, it usually doesn't have to stop at a simple visit to the building.

The people who are called upon to look after these buildings and make them accessible to the public love “their buildings” and usually use a lot of imagination to showcase them properly, which is reflected in a wide variety of exciting activities for visitors.

Recommended online resources for further study:

• German Limes Commission: central contact point for current research, excavation results and the management of the UNESCO World Heritage Limes.
• Leibniz Centre for Archaeology: Offers comprehensive insights into archaeological excavation projects and modern conservation methods for historical building fabric from antiquity and the Middle Ages.
• Romanesque Road (www.strasse-der-romanik.de): an excellently documented guide to Romanesque architecture in Central Germany with detailed information on individual sites.